Strange (Foreign) Coins In Change

I get some from our post office. The tellers will save it for me. I like in a large college town and the students pass foreign coins all the time. Some of them are pretty cool. Got enough different countries that my grandson was able to fill one of the requirements for is Boy Scout merit badge.

I love getting odd things in change. I have found Euros, Mexican, Chinese, Austrailian, Indian, Russian, French,.. tons of them.
Its always neat to see what is used in other countries.

These are strictly, from pocket change in the Detroit area of SE Mich. The biggest reason I think most are in great condition is some of the gas station and party store owners drive to Canada when the exchange rate is in the favor of more Canadian coins for the US dollar.
Most are happy to slip one coin in at a time to change.
I love that the Canadians change their coinage often. And have some real nice looking coins.

I loved the colored inserts on the quarters, the oldest one that I can find this morning are the copper penny 1930, the silver penny 1932, and the nickle 1953. I may have some older pennies as I have a cigar box half full.

Just did a quick look, and found the 1922 sitting on top of the pile waiting for me to find it!

That sure is a healthy pile of coins.
In the Minneapolis area I have been finding about 2 Canadian cents for each wheat that I find. In the last year or so I have accumulated about a quart jar full of mixed denominations.

Circus, you've got a couple prizes there! The 1922 penny is a low mintage year, and you might want to investigate that 1932 "silver" penny a bit closer, as only copper pennies were made back then. Quite possibly it has been plated. In looking through my change for around 40 years, I have never found any pre-1937 Canadian pennies here in Saskatchewan, so you are doing great! I do remember getting lots of US wheats when I was a kid; the oldest coin that I ever got in my own change is still a 1910 wheatie which I got around 35 years ago.

The coolest looking foreign coin was found in a roll of pennie. The coin is actually a little bit smaller than our penny, so it immediately stood out in the roll. It cames from Hong Kong and was minted in 1973, has a picture of a young Queen Lib on the obverse. It also has scalloped edges, appears to me to be copper, and shows a value of Twenty Cents.

Which is really the most unusual coin value that I have come accross in my collecting history including our 2 or 3 cent nickle pieces. It is truely a strange looking coin. It also has four chinese charactures on its revers.

When I began collecting in 1969 in upstate New York, it was not unusual to encounter Canadian coins in change, in the same channels you would receive American coins. There was one major difference, with Canada silver coinage having ended in 1968, silver Canadian 10-cent and 25-cent coins were common. I acquired quite a haul from circulation through the early 1970s and have kept them all. I also encountered Canadian small cents all the way back to 1920, even having found a 1940 Newfoundland cent!